Meet the Iowans Who Gently Disapprove of Sarah Palin

Folks in Pella aren't all thrilled that you-know-who is coming to town for her big movie premiere. But they're awfully nice about it.

PELLA, Iowa --
When a hurricane threatens the East Coast, people board up their homes, gather
their loved ones, and flee to safety. A few hours from now, Hurricane Palin
will hit this lovely little town--home of the Tulip Festival and notable for its
Dutch architecture--for the Iowa premiere of her biographical movie,
"The Undefeated." This may or may not presage a presidential run, and judging
by the number of satellite trucks, the media isn't taking any chances. The
local hotels are sold out, the town square is closed off, and the locus of all
activity is the Pella Opera House, where Palin herself will grace the red
carpet at 5 p.m.

Not
everybody is thrilled about this. Pella is a deeply conservative town, but I
encountered plenty of people (Democrats, independents, Republicans) who were
annoyed by the approaching storm and planning to flee--only this being Iowa,
they were super polite about it. Cyndi Boertje,48, a tutor coordinator at the local college is
one such person. "I will not be in town while Palin is doing all her stuff,"
she informed me. She confessed to some curiosity about the crowd--"I was a
sociology major"--but in the end decided that she could not abide the star of
the show. "Her voice, that dog whistle, it just makes your skin crawl. And the
stuff she says--the dots just don't line up." Boertje had already hit upon a
Dutch-appropriate means of escape: "I'm going on a bike ride."

Ron
Long, the treasurer of the local Democratic Party, considered infiltrating the
event, but decided that might be rude. "We were going to go to it and start
asking questions," he said. "But this town has a lot of Republicans, and I
don't want to ruffle their feathers for nothing." Provocative! Was he
suggesting Palin amounts to "nothing"? "I'm not too worried about her. I think
she'll destroy herself better than anybody else. To me, it's entertainment."

Ann
Visser, 54, an English and journalism teacher at the local high school, also
thought about confronting the crowd, but sounded like she probably wouldn't. "Some of us have talked about a peaceful protest,"
she said. "Somehow, the rest of the world needs to know that we aren't all
giddy about this news."Others
were mildly more huffy--in a reserved, Midwestern sort of way. "I have not seen
anything from her except flash," said Doris Vander Wilt, 67, a retired dress shop owner and registered independent,
who lives six blocks from the Opera House. "It's all snap and crack, no
depth or knowledge." She was staying put at home, all day long.

Palin
evidently has some work to do among Republicans, too, or at least some of them.
Jim Vanden Berg, 63, retired from Vermeer Manufacturing, is a registered
Republican who isn't much taken with Palin or her movie. "No, I won't be
attending," he told me. "It's sold out, and I wasn't going after tickets
anyway. I wouldn't vote for her." Does that mean Palin is bleeding support even
among Pella's Republicans? "I would say there's people who think she's the
cat's meow, and there's people who agree with me. She doesn't trip my trigger."

Still,
Iowans are different. Despite their gentle disapproval, I sensed that if Palin
were to knock on just about any door in Pella, she'd probably be invited in for
lemonade. I'm heading over to the Opera House to mingle with Palin supporters. I'll
file a report later on. In the meantime, I'll give Boertje the last word on the
Palin movie premiere, since her take is so quintessentially Iowan: "We're just
going to wait for this to blow over. I guess it'll affect us because we have to
drive in that mess. But we already have construction going on, so it's just one
more obstacle to weave around."